"On the ground I lay motionless in pain, I can see my life flashing before my eyes"

Chapter Ten

My heart was beating like a caged bird as I was handed a cloth rope. I stared at it with horror; it seemed that if I was going to survive I would have to be dependent on my reflexes. As I waited with a sinking feeling pooling in my gut I remember what the shadowed man told me.

You will be against not only your people, but your cellmates. After them is the other unit; they are all men. Don't think that force is what is going to save you, use your brain. Let go of the compassion to these people and your morals. If not you will be the first to be slaughtered.

I took a deep breath as the chains fell from my being as I held tightly to my only weapon. I raised my head and walked with the others into the sand area. One month of training has gotten me better, but not good enough.

The cold wind nicked at my skin even more and twirled my hair around me like a cyclone. It made me even more aware of how bare I was. My undergarments were all but falling apart; I was surprised that they up held the weather and so forth. My hand briefly touched the only thing besides my undergarments that was my own; the necklace.

I moved way and almost behind a starved Elvhen woman when the other unit came into the arena. Only a few moments passed when a scarlet flag fell from the starter. For a moment there was complete stillness and then it erupted into chaos.

With my heart in my throat I wrapped the cloth around the woman in front of me and used her as a shield to an oncoming arrow. She gurgled and jerked around, but she wasn't dead. She was breathing fast as I tightened the cloth around her neck and with a sickening sound she lay dead at my feet.

"Forgive me." I whispered and started on my next victim. It was the older sister of the girl-woman. She was fighting a lanky half dead male with a wooden spear. Her fight ended quickly by plunging the spear into his gut, and she smiled.

As she looked down at her kill I wrapped the cloth around her neck. She was faster than the one before her. She snapped her elbow into my gut and I gasped with the pain. I tried to keep her near so I could choke her but she twirled a few feet away. I was aware of the crowd cheering with another dead. I felt sick, really, really sick.

I glared at her and an insane smile bloomed on her face. I was near her kill, my foot bumped into his hand which still held his weapon; a poleaxe. I quickly grabbed the poleaxe and changed my stance, I held it with both hand and the cloth was hanging from my fingers.

Feet apart, balanced.

I barely felt the plus of life in the back of my mind that it made me gasp. I haven't felt it in so long that I thought I had lost it. It was a parasite living in his gut. I tried to think of a way that it could help me but came up with nothing.

She jabbed her spear at me, all I had to do was side step away. She was just playing with me like a cat. My mouth tightened as I felt the presence of the girl-woman. She was holding a wooden staff with blood at the tip of it. One look at them and I knew they planned on tag teaming this whole thing.

Put away your morals.

In a quick breath and I was throwing the sand in the older ones face and kicked the younger one behind the calf. A rush of magic soon followed, it almost hit me but instead burnt the older one, I watched with wide eyes as she cried out. She was being burned from the inside out.

I met the eyes of the one whom casted the spell in a brief second but that was enough. With a nod of understanding I found myself an ally. I turned quickly and plunged the poleaxe deeply into the young girl-woman's neck. With the momentum and strength I found it scrapping against her spinal cord. Lucky she was dead on impact. I turned on my heel and made quick work of the next, and the next and the next.

Before long I was standing with exhaustion holding my poleaxe in one hand and holding shut my undergarment and part of my gushing wound with the other. The big man smiled down at me and raised his giant sword to hit me again; thankfully he didn't have a chance because as he raised his arms to slash and hack at me he left a vital organ exposed. With a quick and risky movement I was plunging the end of the poleaxe under his ribs and into his heart.

He gasped and fell to his knees, his heart was pumping furious as his hands wrapped around the poleaxe and threw it into the blood stained sand. He was panting holding his wound. I knew that it would take a few moments for him to die so I grabbed the poleaxe from the sand and slashed it across his throat, and with a horrid gasping sound he bleeds out. I would forever remember him trying to breath and the sound it made.

I tied my undergarment with the cloth rope and took a strip of his clothes to stop the gushing of my blood. It went right over the scar I had from so long ago, the one from that man and the fire. I scowled at the scar and stood up.

After that I let the monster that howled and cried take control of me. I could see through her eyes and her I. With glowing markings I smiled as I felt her power, this was what I was trying to feel when I touched those bars.

The beast made it seem like a dance as I slaughtered them. I controlled my hands, my feet she only showed me how to move them, the power that should be behind the attacks. It was like what happened before, only now I had more control.

As the haze of blood lust left I looked into the eyes of the caster. My wound was still bleeding and it made me woozy but I held up. The man only nineteen at least had red hair and pale skin. He was about five feet tall—tall for an Elvhen. He held his hand out to support me as the tall gates opened and guards came and ushered us away leaving behind the tainted sand and wild crowd.

I held tightly to this strangers arm as we were ushered into dark moist halls. It made me uneasy that there was stone above my head but I kept walking—or should I say limping. After so many turns that I had no hope of ever seeing the light of day we came into a cavern like room.

Right dab in the middle of the room was that Elvhen mage. She rushed forward and had us sit down. Another the shemlen woman handed each of us cold clear water as the other healed our wounds. I gulped down the water greedily as she healed me, it hurt as my flesh kitted back together and it was still sore.

"There will be a scar." She told me as she handed me another pair of undergarments and pointed to a screen to change into it. I walked quickly and did just that. After that we didn't have to wait long at all. We were ushered up to the surface again.

We were lead up onto the platform with I know now their god Levis. I watched with disgust as seven lords sat as one by one we were presented and they bought. My mind wondered quickly away and searched the crowd for the familiar outline of my shadowed man. There were thousands and thousands of people, men, women, and children.

The mage went up before me and I made myself pay attention to his buying. It was quite quick after the auctioneer went over his good traits and saying how useful he was. The one lord with golden hair the color of the sun and eye of the coldest water and the other the hottest flame bought him for thirty five sovereigns.

The mage was the only one who got held down and branded. He cried out as the image of a long sword with a snake wrapped around it was burned in between his shoulder and chest. He sat limp as the lord locked a sturdy and elegant collar around the mage's neck. He was then dragged to the side.

I really did not want to be bought by this guy now.

I was then grabbed by the auctioneer and was turned around. He held out my one arm and started speaking.

"Look at these markings! You will be the envy of the others to be in control of such beauty! Look at her face! Do you see the spit fire she is? She'll be great to train." He then held my hair out of my face to show my hidden ears and turned my face away so the sun hit me just right.

"Look at this body! It could be a weapon and with that power a good one. Or a bed warmer! Think of that!" he cried lightly touching my waist. I glared at the shemlen man, I really wanted to hit him now- I was no cattle.

"Thirty sovereigns!" one of the lords called out laughing.

"—forty sovereigns." The other lord—the one who bought the mage. Malachi? I think his name was.

"Fifty!" the other said standing up stopping the other lord from coming to me.

"Sixty five."

"Sixty three!"

"Eighty sovereigns." Lord Malachi said coldly. The air was silent as we waited for the other to say something. All he did was sit back down in a huff.

"Sold!" the auctioneer said with glee and I was being held down. No, no, no this was not happening. It can't be.

One of the people that were holding me down held my face still as the glowing white hot brand came closer and closer to my face. It would fit perfectly between the slanted x and my lips.

I yelled and screamed as pain as it made contact with my face. I tried thrashing but it didn't work, it hurt worse than the magic infused bars. As if a whole world just stopped, and I thought it would last forever. With a strangled gasp of relief it was removed from my face but the pain did not go away but accumulated.

"Welcome to my house." He said as he put an elegant collar around my neck. Faintly I took in how beautifully craved it was but that was soon out of my mind as black dots danced around my vision.